Biography
Donavann Brooks (born February 27, 1992) who records under the name Donny Fresca is a music artist from Memphis, Tennessee. He performed his first rap in his elementary school, Hanley Elementary, when he was originally suppose to perform as a group with some friends who caught a case of cold feet leaving him to perform on his own. He was inspired to write, rap, and perform music from an uncle who would write raps with his friends in the kitchen of his grandmother's home. Ever since then, he has developed a passion for it along with his own style. Growing up, he listened to a variety of artists and their styles including Jay-Z, Bone Thugs-n-Harmony, Nas, Pharrell and many more. From their styles he created his own style based off blending a mixture of tongue twisters and other factors. He believed it is what makes him stand out a little bit more. He feels the way his rhymes schemes are built in his mind, he has the ability to write and rap to any beat and not get put in a certain genre of instrumentals. Years later, he is still doing music releasing mixtapes after mixtapes.
Early Years
After elementary school, he headed into middle school with a stronger love for music. In middle school, Donavann and his friends including a friend from his past elementary school put together a system of cyphers and freestyle battles as something to do in their spare time but it remained, in a sense, "underground" to avoid attention from teachers and staff. The battles took place between classes, and lunch, during physical education, and after school. He became known as one of the best rappers among the others earning the name "50" after a rapper who was topping charts at the time known as "50 cent". Eventually the man to man battles evolved to crew against crew battles as people took sides with their friends. As he went into high school, he had bigger plans of doing more with his music. Entering high school, he became friends with a different group of people more like himself including another Memphis artist known as Corbin Carter. Donavann put together a team that he decided to name "T.N.T. ENT". It was short for "Top Notch Talent Entertainment". It was made up of artist from the school who also wanted to get their music heard. Donavann went by the name of "Fly Guy" and the co-founder, Corbin Carter, went by the name of "Bird". After being able to obtain a cheap microphone they were able to get their hands on, they started to record. They recorded on a laptop Donavann owned with free recording software found on the internet called Audacity. They started to get the attention of they peers after recording various songs including remixes, freestyles, and original songs, then handing out their work. the songs were of all the different artist they had put together under the T.N.T. ENT name. Later that school year, they T.N.T. ENT artists performed in a talent show performing a remixed version to a song, one of the artists', who performed under the name E-Rob, had made. The song was called "Who I Be" and a large amount of the credit for writing the song went to Donavann for helping the artist out with the song. The T.N.T. ENT group's remix to the original song came in second beating out all other acts except one of a gossip singing. The crowd cheered, yelling for the group after the performance. After that, the group faced problems. Tension between members under Donavann and Corbin lead them to disband the group after the group was no longer productive and had became more of a stress issue. They continued to do music with E-Rob and most of the members remained friends. They then decided to take their music to Myspace where they caught the eye of a talent scout and she gave them advice to drop their stage names at that time. Donavann later went back to using one after becoming known as Donny Fresca.
Present Day
He decided to expanded his music as much as he can while continue working with Corbin Carter who had also went through name changes. He began to put his music on YouTube, Facebook and Twitter. With the help of his friends that don't rap, he put together "F.A.S.T.L.A.N.E." based of Donny Fresca's belief to live life fast with no regrets and you will be able to say you have lived a full life. FASTLANE also serves as his street promotion team, and advice gurus. With the release of his official solo mixtape, Silver Spoon, he continues to work on his music working to release his next mixtape Passport Ambitions along with another which is a duo mixtape with Corbin Carter called The Other Guys. One of their original songs entitled "On My Level" was used during the time the dance known as 'Jerking' was new to advertise a brand of clothes called 'RandomWare'. At the age of 19, he has already been interviewed on an internet radio show multiple times known as Urban Block Radio. He feels the way the way his rhymes schemes are built in his mind, he has the ability to write and rap to any beat and not get put in a certain genre of instrumentals. He is continuously working on new songs determined to let the world hear it and is aiming for a deal. He can be contacted at [email protected] or on twitter @AyeYoDonny